Posts tagged ‘Rudolf Bultmann’

Rudolf Bultmann and the authentic self came out of response to Martin Heidegger. Heidegger thought that one must choose to become authentic–human nature is inauthentic. You’re split from your own self-hood, but the self calls the self back to itself and to wholeness and integration. Hence, there are two “me’s.” We can heed that call through philosophical analysis and become authentically whole. Bultmann says, “No you can’t, because we are in sin.” Bultmann connects Heidegger’s view of human being with the biblical view of humanity and the human situation. Sin is not inauthenticity itself but the choice (entscheidung, decision) not to heed the call to freedom and selfhood. In contrast to Heidegger, the I of the human being, which has fallen into inauthentic they cannot get itself back no matter how hard it tries.